


Mistimed Confession

by Weevilo707



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU where the end fight was actually satisfying, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 04:26:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10235855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: Karkat fucked up. He wasn't supposed to let him know.Dave fucked up. He was supposed to tell him already.





	

Everything since you’ve gotten into the new session has been fucking awful. You haven’t seen Dave since you’ve all had to split Everything since you’ve gotten into the new session has been fucking awful. You haven’t seen Dave since you’ve all had to split ways to try and finally beat this godforsaken game. 

You’ve seen a _lot_ of his corpses though.

It hurts like claws tearing into your chest and ripping out your lungs every fucking time, and you have to force yourself to keep moving. Can’t fucking stop. You don’t let yourself give into the urge to try like an idiot to bring him back or at least check for some sort of sign that it’s not a doomed Dave. 

There’s no real way for you to tell, they’re all _him._ There’s nothing setting apart the doomed from the alpha because there’s nothing different about them. Every single one you see is a time your best friend died saving someone else’s ass and you can’t stop to do anything for them as much as you wish you could. It’s normal for trolls to leave the bodies out but you know humans prefer to get rid of them and you know how much Dave hates time traveling but you can’t. 

You’ve got too much to do. You’ve got plans to make and carapacians to ally with and jujus to break and brain washing to overcome. You have to be there for everyone and make them stay focused because you’re the fucking knight of blood and if you don’t do it then no one will. You’ve got to keep moving if any of you are ever going to make it out of this game alive and every time you fuck up is another doomed Dave you find. 

You just don’t have enough _time._

So you work through it, knowing that each time you fine him all crumpled and broken somewhere it’s because his dumb ass was trying to twist fate around in your favor. You know you need to focus but you can’t stop replaying the last few moments you had on the meteor with him. The fact that it's that dumb cold rock that you think of whenever you wish you could go home stings in a way you didn’t expect it to. 

You wish you’d done more. It’s terrifying every time you think that the last slumped over form you avoided looking at could have been it, could be where he fucking ends and what would you have to show for it? A bunch of hallow reassurances that everything would be okay and a broken promise to see each other again soon and hang out without the looming threat of death once it’s all over. 

You push those thoughts away and tell yourself over and over again that he’s going to be okay to ground yourself. 

He’s going to be okay. 

He’s gonna be okay. 

He’s okay. 

Nothing feels real when it’s over. You’re still so sure that everything is going to break apart at the seams but no. You’ve managed to turn paradox space’s loops and certainty against itself, destroying that skull fuck and extract yourselves from its hold entirely. Everyone's tired and weak but celebrating and excited around you and you can only kind of pay attention to any of that.

Dave’s here and he’s _okay_ and the relief hits you like a punch in the gut. 

He looks exhausted and his shades are broken but the smile on his face gets a little bigger when he sees you and it makes your heart fucking melt. When you run over to him you’re not entirely sure if you’re going to hug him or punch him. 

You don’t end up doing either of those things. 

It’s only after you pull back from the kiss and you see the look of confusion and shock on Dave’s face that the reality of what you just did comes crashing around you. The smile drops from your face in an instant and you feel like you’re going to throw up when pull back from where you’ve got your arms wrapped around him like you’ve been burnt. 

You don’t want to let go of him, you’ve been so fucking worried. Even now you’re terrified that if you look away for too long he’s going to disappear and that might be true because you just fucked up _so fucking much._

“Hey man, don’t give me that look. It’s like you’ve seen a dead body or something,” he jokes, forcing a smile onto his face but it’s just that, forced. You make yourself follow suite though, putting on a shaky smile because everyone’s here and if he doesn’t want to do this in the middle of everyone celebrating you sure as fuck don’t. 

“Only a couple dozen. I’m guessing it would have literally killed you to be a bit more careful,” you say, trying to keep a lighthearted tone to your voice and almost succeeding. “You scared me,” you add quietly, not able to keep up the fake ease. You feel a breath away from breaking down in tears and there’s too much for you to even try and figure out the main reason why. Everything, probably. 

You don’t expect the hug Dave pulls you into but you’re so fucking thankful for it even if you don’t deserve it anymore. You let yourself cling to him greedily because he probably won’t ever let you do this again and you need this reminder that he’s actually here. He didn’t die even if you screwed up he’s still _here._

“Sorry,” Dave says, wrapping his arms a little tighter around you and you’re not sure if he’s apologizing for scaring you or because you went and broke everything. “And don’t worry about it,” he adds, speaking quietly so that you’re pretty sure you’re the only one who can hear him. “We’ll figure it out later, okay?” You nod, even though it doesn’t feel okay in the slightest. 

You barely manage to keep yourself from trying to hold on when he pulls away from you. You don’t want to make this any worse than you already have. Dave smiles at you again and it looks so genuine that you almost feel like he was telling the truth when he said not to worry. 

You both join everyone else celebrating and when people start heading off to rest from the final leg of the game you take that excuse to leave as well. There’s not much set up yet, you’ll have to start from scratch. You won’t have an alchemiter or anything else from the game to help with that either. For now you manage to find a cool dark and secluded little spot to curl up and sleep. 

You don’t want to avoid Dave, fuck no. You can’t imagine what he must think now that the adrenaline and relief has worn off though. You can’t fucking face him. 

It’s better to not see him and pretend he doesn’t hate you now. 

You’re such a fucking idiot. 

\---

Even when everything went right you couldn’t keep from fucking it all up. 

There had to of been something you could’ve done to keep everything from fucking up. 

Why didn’t you fucking kiss him back?

You know why, there were several reasons why you didn’t. You were kind of taken off guard for one. You just got finished watching yourself die a million and one times and the reality that you were finally free from that godawful game was trying to sink in and in the middle of all that Karkat runs up and fucking kisses you. It was a _lot_ to process at once. 

You could have afterwards though, it didn’t take you that long to adjust. You could have done it when you went to hug him. Everyone was there though. It’s so stupid, at that point they’d already seen the first kiss if they were paying attention. What the fuck would another one do? 

You didn’t though, and now you haven’t seen him in days and any rest you thought you’d get with the game being over has been thrown out the fucking window. He has to hate you now. Or he thinks you hate him. You aren’t sure which is worse. 

You haven’t hung around with anyone much since you first got here. You’ve been looking for Karkat. When you see Rose though there’s not a three year gap you’d need to fill or a tentative new friendship with unsure boundaries so you grab her because you’re desperate and need someone you can trust. 

“Have you seen Karkat?” you ask before she can say anything and you can’t even get annoyed at the amused look she gives you because you’re too fucking worried. 

“No one has seen much of either of you these past few days. We all figured you’ve been off celebrating on your own,” she says, an entertained smugness to her that lets you know she absolutely saw the kiss but you’re too pissed at yourself to be embarrassed anymore. 

“We haven’t,” you tell her bluntly and that seems to get through the gloating ‘I knew it’ bubble around her. 

“Oh?” she asks. 

“I haven’t seen Karkat since we got here,” you say, the desperation in your voice surprising Rose. It’d surprise yourself but it was just. You just. 

You’ve been fucking in love with him for months, or no, longer than that, but it took you forever to accept it. You wanted to tell him before you got off the meteor, but there was too much of a risk that you’d die. You didn’t want to hurt him. So you figured if you were still alive you’d tell him after. 

And you had the perfect fucking chance. It would’ve been cheesy as shit and you know how much he loves that junk. Even if you were too goddamn embarrassed to kiss him in front of everyone you could’ve _told him_ when you hugged him. Instead of saying you’d ‘figure it out later’ like it was some sort of problem that he kissed you. 

“Do you think something happened to him?” Rose asks, sounding genuinely concerned and breaking you out of your thoughts. You shake your head, which only seems to confuse her even more. 

“He’s avoiding me,” you say. 

“Did you two get into a fight?” she asks and you shake your head again. “Then why in the _world_ would he be avoiding you Dave? I know you two prefer to keep your privacy but-”

“We’re not dating,” you cut her off before she can finish. She gives you a look like she doesn’t believe you for a second and you guess that’s fair from where she’s standing.

“Dave,” she says slowly and you wish you were being an obtuse fuck like usual instead of what was actually going on. 

“We’re not,” you repeat, continuing before she can start arguing. “That’s the whole problem. That, the kiss or whatever you saw when we won, that was the first fucking time. I didn’t, well I didn’t do anything. I just told him we’d talk later and I haven’t seen him since and he probably thinks I fucking hate him,” you explain. Rose stares at you for a moment before letting out a long sigh and you can’t even be annoyed by that. You completely understand the sentiment and you’d do the exact same thing because you’re a fucking idiot. 

“And just so we’re clear here to avoid any more similar problems in the future, your feelings towards him are?” she asks. You wish you had your shades, all you can do is hide your face in your hands as you answer. 

“I fucking love him okay just help me find him already,” you say almost too fast and mumbled for anyone to understand. You’re sure Rose understood though because she’s back to looking all smug as shit again. 

“Alright then, let’s get looking,” she says and it still takes several hours of asking around and narrowing down where he could be but eventually you catch sight of him between some trees. Thankfully you don’t have to tell Rose to leave, she disappears when you start trying to get closer without him noticing. 

“Hey,” you say after a moment, and he looks fucking terrified when his head snaps towards you. God, you hate that he looks that way because of you. 

“Oh, um. Hi,” he says nervously, but he doesn’t try to run off as you walk up towards him. “How’ve you been?” he asks, and you should answer him. You don’t want to start talking and fuck up again though. 

So instead you finish closing the distance so that you can pull him into a kiss like you _should have_ before. 

He looks so confused when you pull back and you drag him into a hug because you fucking missed him. You pushed yourself through that fucking game because you wanted to see him happy and the first thing you did when it was over was hurt him.

“Sorry,” you mumble against him. “Didn’t mean to freak you out like that, sorry,” you tell him, scared that he’s gonna run off if you let go of him. He’s all stiff in your arms and you’re worried that maybe it’s too late, you missed your chance and he hates you. After a moment he relaxes against you though and you’re still scared but he’s hugging you back so maybe shit isn’t completely irreversible. 

“So… you don’t hate me?” Karkat asks and he sounds so fucking uncertain and scared and you squeeze him tighter. 

“No, fuck no holy shit,” you tell him. You really need him to know that, so you pull back just enough to get to his face so you can kiss him again. This time he kisses you back and it’s such a relief and also kinda amazing? Yeah, holy shit this is nice. 

“Love you,” you force yourself to say when you pull away, and the words are still kind of hard to get out but the idea of him thinking you feel anything less for him is worse. “Meant to tell you after we won but uh, it was kinda a lot at once,” you tell him. He gives a little laugh, nodding before resting his head against you. 

“Sorry for running off,” he mumbles but you shake your head. 

“It’s fine. Missed you though,” you say. 

“Missed you too,” he says, locking his fingers with yours and squeezing your hand slightly. “Love you,” he adds and your heart fucking melts. 

You stay holding him for a while until eventually you both move to sit down. He’s still got a hold on your hand, and you pull him closer to lean against you. You both just talk and it’s a lot like back on the meteor but it’s bright and warm instead of dark and cold and there’s nothing you’re rushing towards that’s going to kill you and it’s really nice. 

You could get used to this.

**Author's Note:**

> i had the idea at midnight and so i wrote this until around four am and then finished it up today. Not much to it, was feeling some major hurt/comfort sappy davekat feels and this is the result.


End file.
